Product description

"Over the moon with a metaphysical spin. Heart-tugging...it is struggling to understand the physical realities of life and the nature of what makes us human....Nicely unpredictable...Extraordinary." --Janet Maslin, "The New York Times"When Maxon met Sunny, he was seven years, four months, and eighteen-days old. Or, he was 2693 rotations of the earth old. Maxon was different. Sunny was different. They were different together.Now, twenty years later, they are married, and Sunny wants, more than anything, to be "normal." She's got the housewife thing down perfectly, but Maxon, a genius engineer, is on a NASA mission to the moon, programming robots for a new colony. Once they were two outcasts who found unlikely love in each other: a wondrous, strange relationship formed from urgent desire for connection. But now they're parents to an autistic son. And Sunny is pregnant again. And her mother is dying in the hospital. Their marriage is on the brink of imploding, and they're at each other's throats with blame and fear. What exactly has gone wrong?Sunny wishes Maxon would turn the rocket around and come straight-the-hell home.When an accident in space puts the mission in peril, everything Sunny and Maxon have built hangs in the balance. Dark secrets, long-forgotten murders, and a blond wig all come tumbling to the light. And nothing will ever be the same....A debut of singular power and intelligence, "Shine Shine Shine" is a unique love story, an adventure between worlds, and a stunning novel of love, death, and what it means to be human. "Shine Shine Shine" is a "New York Times" Notable Book of 2012.

Author information

LYDIA NETZER was born in Detroit and educated in the Midwest. She lives in Virginia with her two home-schooled children and math-making husband. When she isn't teaching, reading, or writing her next novel, she plays the guitar in a rock band.

Customer reviews

Reason for Reading: I was attracted to this book because of the autistic son. Both my own son and myself are autistic (me: Asperger's) so I am often drawn to books that depict these characters. The book also sounded like it would be "quirky", something I really enjoy.

All I can really say about this book is "WOW"! What a beautiful story. Sunny and Maxon share the ultimate love story. This book is about love, the pure and simple kind and how complicated we can make it out to be. What is experienced between Sunny and Maxon is that something kind of wonderful that one can only hope they will get to experience in some small way in one's own life. This is a romance for people who don't read romances. The book also explores autism and Asperger's in all its awesome reality, both its drawbacks and its benefits. We see this way of being from all possible angles, theories and thoughts. I was truly swept away with these characters and in love with both autistics, Bubber and Maxon, as I saw myself and my son in them to certain degrees, while totally relating to them. And yet I also related to Sunny, who has her own difference she must live with who only wants to be "normal" and have her family fit in and *be* "normal" like everyone else. But as she learns, no one is really normal and the most normal of us all usually are faking it on the outside, just trying to fit in like everybody else. An extremely powerful book, with characters who hit your heart and won't easily be forgotten. I rarely read a book and imagine re-reading it, but this is one I *know* I will be rereading a few years down the line!

Review quote

"Not only entertaining, but nuanced and wise...blending wit and imagination with an oddly mesmerizing, matter-of-fact cadence, Netzer's debut is a delightfully unique love story and a resounding paean to individuality." --"People" (People Pick)"Netzer's storytelling method is as poetic as her language. She slowly assembles a multitude of pinpoint insights that converge to form a glimmering constellation...a stellar, thought-provoking debut" --"The New York Times Book Review""Over the moon with a metaphysical spin. Heart-tugging...it is struggling to understand the physical realities of life and the nature of what makes us human....Nicely unpredictable...Extraordinary." --Janet Maslin, "The New York Times""You're pulled into the drama through the incredible natural beauty of her writing ... deftly and wittily done ... people say her style reminds them of Anne Tyler, but she reminded me a little bit more of Don DeLillo." --Liesl Schillinger, "The New York Times Book Review "Podcast"Entirely winning...a refreshingly weird story about the exuberant weirdness of familial love." --"The Wall Street Journal""Netzer deftly illuminates the bonds that transcend shortcomings and tragedy. Characterized by finely textured emotions and dramatic storytelling, Netzer's world will draw readers happily into its orbit." --"Publishers Weekly""Netzer has beautifully crafted an original story with a cast of characters who make up an unconventional but strangely believable family...This story will shine, shine, shine for all adult readers." --"Library Journal," starred review"The novel traces Maxon and Sunny's relationship from their childhoods in Burma and Appalachia to outer space, revealing the futility of chasing an ideal of what's normal..."Shine Shine Shine "breaks free of the gravitational pull of traditional romantic cliches." --"The Washington Post""Lydia Netzer's luminous debut novel concerns what lies beneath society's pretty surfaces -- Sunny's congen